Project Resurgence: The Future of New Rising Media

In September, I wrote about the death and rebirth of New Rising Media as a name to put on my freelance social media marketing word. Contrary to what was written, this will not happen, so I’m here to explain why and share plans for 2016 with you.

A lot of what was written still rings true: the mission statement was incredibly chauvinistic, we were trying to write about too many things on one site, and NRM did not feel like my metaphorical child, the same it did two years ago.

I also spoke about not having an interest in writing about music, movies, games and social media. I wanted to enjoy albums, make copious amounts of cinema trips on my Cineworld Unlimited card, and learn about new Snapchat features like any normal human being.

Things are going well with Neo-Entity, presenting a renewed focus on technology, science and geek culture on a completely new website. While readership is still small as expected, the low bounce rate and good percentage of returning users show a fanbase I never saw with New Rising Media.

I still love receiving new EPs from James at Independent Music Promotions and giving them a listen while cracking on with my day job (I look forward to the next release from Heyward Howkins). I still love discussing movies with my girlfriend, giving them in-depth reviews and inevitably boring her with my cinematography obsession. And with the career I’m in, I still love finding out about the latest social media innovations and predicting where they sit (or don’t sit) in the world.

So what does this mean for New Rising Media in 2016? The simple answer is it’s coming back.

As you can see, the site has gone through a bit of a redesign, with a new layout and updated branding. The more dedicated readers out there may notice the branding now looks extremely similar to what is used on Neo-Entity.

This is a deliberate move, as part of what I am calling Project Resurgence: a mission to get New Rising Media back to 2012 levels of relevance and bring Neo-Entity up with it.

In 2016, New Rising Media will recommence reporting about social media, music, movies and games. A couple of list articles will be posted to close out this year (‘10 best games you’ve never heard of in 2015’ being one of them), but our main focus will be on next year.

New Rising Media and Neo-Entity will work in parallel, sharing amongst each other to provide a wide platform of content. But the end result will continue to be two separate sites, as it’s clear to see the ‘jack of all trades’ approach does not work when it comes to blogging. You have to be simple and concise about what you do, and I believe this split is the way to do it.

But that doesn’t mean we won’t be expanding into different ‘trades.’ There are plenty of topics that I’d love to expand into and test, including product design and (don’t judge me) WWE wrestling. New Rising Media will be the testing bed for this content because the brand is better positioned for culture insight. Neo-Entity will maintain a strict position for technology, science and the most fascinating of UK geek culture.

This will happen in one of two ways.

1) By myself

Citizen journalism was sexy back in 2012, but the idea of doing unpaid work writing on a self-created news website doesn’t have the same attraction anymore, even though it does continue to have some extremely strong merits. It’s the reason why the number of writers gradually reduced to just me, increasing by one recently with the help of my friend Jamie. This way round, the plan will still happen but just at a dramatically slower rate. Personally, I would much rather prefer the next option…

2) In a team

New Rising Media is a site that topped the front page of Reddit, used as a source link to The Guardian amongst many different huge websites, and received an audience of over 500,000 per month. That was possible with a team of 5 at the top of their game. It would be amazing to work with a team again on reinvigorating New Rising Media and bringing Neo-Entity to life, but I’ve got to get to the humble brag about career futures of course.

People whom I have worked with have gone on to the likes of the London Evening Standard, Rockstar Games, Microsoft and the BBC. While I (of course) cannot take complete credit for any of this, these incredible opportunities come to people who demonstrate their passion outside of the day-to-day and qualifications. NRM has always been an incredible platform to show these skills to a massive audience, as is Neo-Entity too.

If you are interested at all in joining a team like this, to disrupt the online news space, please get in touch with me on Jason@newrisingmedia.com.

TL:DR

New Rising Media is returning to provide its unique insight into social media, music, movies and games. Neo-Entity will continue to report about the cutting edge of technology, science and geek culture in the UK. Together, they provide a complete platform for all aspects of a nerd’s life, but they remain separate to tailor each experience to its readership.